


how to stack your stones

by some_stars



Series: children's work [3]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: (See notes) - Freeform, (a little), F/M, Geralt very briefly gets to pet a cat, Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, M/M, OT3 vibes but no actual OT3 yet, Polyamory, Singing, Torture, moderate violence but not enough for the warning, respectful but not modern language used to describe trans people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25018606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/some_stars/pseuds/some_stars
Summary: In which Yennefer deals with her feelings, learns some sleight-of-hand, makes friends with a cat, and kills a wizard, not necessarily in that order.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: children's work [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1807540
Comments: 111
Kudos: 782





	how to stack your stones

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to [spirographeme](https://spirographeme.tumblr.com/) for kicking the first half of this into shape, and to [clotpoleofthelord](https://clotpoleofthelord.tumblr.com/) and [wehaveallgotknives](https://wehaveallgotknives.tumblr.com/) for beta'ing the first draft. I did not do quite all of what any of them told me to do, so any remaining flaws are entirely my own.
> 
> Title, as before, is from Dessa's [Children's Work.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSxSCv7Cegc)
> 
> There's a brief moment in this fic where trans people are referred to with language that is (I hope) respectful, but would not be correct in a modern setting; please see the end notes if you want to preview the exact words used.

Yennefer stepped through the portal and stepped out on the threshold of what looked like a cottage. It wasn't—the only thing it had in common with the one-room cottage it appeared to be was that it was a building, and she sometimes slept there. But after her predicament in Rinde, she'd learned the value of keeping a low profile—at least, for the time being. Until it wasn't useful anymore. 

She didn't think about any of that, as the portal closed behind her. She didn't let herself think about anything. She traced a sigil in the air in front of the door, forcing her hand steady when it started to shake, and walked through and held out a hand for a raven made of shadows to perch and stare at her with shiny black eyes. 

"Hello," it said. 

"Has anyone been here?"

"No," it said. She knew it would; none of her wards had been disturbed. But it didn't hurt to be sure. "You were gone a long time," said the raven. She waved a hand and it dissolved into smoke.

The interior of the not-cottage wasn't quite a manor—what would be the point—but the front hall was large, and felt larger than it used to. Of course, she'd just spent six months living in a two-room apartment, so her perspective was probably skewed. 

She crossed the hall and entered the library. Gloriaxes' tome on regenerative magic was still open on the reading table, right where she'd left it. One of the pleasures of having a place of her own was being able to leave things about. There was no dust on the pages, of course; time didn't pass in here when she was gone, except for the raven. 

She wished there were dust. That there were some sign. She touched the page and was horrified to find that her hand was shaking again.

She slammed the book shut and left the room. There was a spell to ensure a quick descent into sleep, and no dreams. It had been one of the first spells she'd taught herself after Aretuza. She slipped into bed and murmured the words, and sleep came for her a minute later, though not before she had time to think how strange the silk sheets felt, and how much she would have preferred cotton. 

—

In the ordinary course of things, she preferred to have company. Well, perhaps "company" was the wrong word. It implied an equal exchange. It would be more accurate simply to say that she preferred to be around other people, at least some of the time.

At the moment, however, she felt...raw, and certain that anyone who saw her would see right through her skin. That was unacceptable.

She slipped on a white robe and went to the kitchen. Cooking was not one of her more developed skills, though she could keep herself alive well enough, but for the moment she just cut a slice of bread and some cheese to go with it, and summoned the raven to sit by her while she ate. The food in Oxenfurt had been surprisingly good, for a university dining hall, but perhaps she just hadn't had a very sophisticated palate at the time.

She cut that train of thought off sharply and kept her mind carefully blank as she finished eating. Then she went back to the library, raven perched on her shoulder, and reopened Gloriaxes. It was good to lose herself in the old familiar problem, and several hours passed in reading.

The thought had occurred to her, before—before, that when she solved this problem, she would be left rather without purpose. Unless, of course, she had a child. The idea had been vague and gauzy before, but now she had a concrete example of what a parent was supposed to do. Now she had more than formless fantasies about cradling an infant, buttoning a daughter's dress, or watching her play in a meadow in the late afternoon light. More than the general idea that she would be _kind,_ the way no one had been to her.

Childhood memories were supposed to be blurred by time, but she remembered every moment of the last six months as if it were yesterday, because, of course, it had been. She remembered Jaskier singing to her, and listening as she read stumblingly through her botany book, jumping in to pronounce the more difficult words for her to repeat. She remembered him brushing the tangles out of her hair gently, careful not to pull too hard. She remembered him _listening_ to her, to her no doubt tedious childish excitements—a piece of wood shaped like a cat, a street juggler she'd sat and watched in awe—and never betraying a hint of boredom. Perhaps he hadn't even felt any.

 _I don't want to think about this,_ she thought, but how could she not? How could she not compare herself and come up wanting?

The temperature in the cottage was always perfect, of course, but she felt cold as she forced her attention back to the tome before her.

—

The weeks passed quietly. For a while, she busied herself building up her stock of potions and amulets, just the standard assortment of things people would pay for. Potions for restoring sexual vigor or desire were always popular, as were ointments to regrow a balding head, but she did a good trade in healing potions, contraceptives, and mildly protective amulets as well. Then there were the top shelf items, which sold more rarely but commanded a better price: the abortifacients, of course, along with potions that induced euphoria and made you hear colors, vials to slip into someone's drink that would force them to speak only the truth, rings that let someone keep track of the wearer's location, and various other concoctions and inventions. It was mindless work, on the whole, but it kept her occupied. 

When she reached for the bottle of pennyroyal extract and found it empty, it occurred to her that she should probably check on the herb garden out back. She'd never cared much for gardening—magic or no, she hadn't been blessed with a green thumb, and she hated working outside in the dirt. Herbalism had grown slightly more interesting when she'd left Aretuza and been able to experiment on her own, but it had always carried the tinge of a dull, enforced duty. She wasn't exactly surprised, then, to find half of the plants in the garden dying. Time, of course, hadn't passed in the garden either; it had been like this the last time she left. 

What did surprise her was twofold: the little girl's grief that sprung up inside her at the sight of the withered leaves, and the realization that not only did she know exactly how to revive the withered pennyroyal bush, she was looking forward to doing it—imagining the feel of her fingers in the dirt, the gentle care with which she would repot it, the pleasure of watching it revive. 

No, not imagining—remembering. For a dizzying few moments she was a child again, kneeling in her narrow, crowded patch of dirt behind the Oxenfurt apartment, smiling confidently as she repeated what she'd learned from Grazina on the proper amount of shade for mugwort to thrive.

(She wondered if anyone would take care of that little garden anymore—Grazina, perhaps—or if it would soon look just like this one, abandoned to time and the elements.)

She swallowed around a hard lump in her throat and refused to let herself flee back inside. Instead she paced methodically up and down the rows, considering each plant, letting the new knowledge of how to fix it float to the surface of her mind. Information, after all, was only a tool. 

As she reached the back edge of the garden, she heard a low and rumbly miaow, and turned to watch a large ginger cat leap down from a fencepost and saunter up to her. The garden, like the rest of the house, was glamoured, and should have been invisible—but cats and magic were often a peculiar mix.

"Shoo," she told it firmly. It rubbed against her legs, undaunted. A friendly thing, no doubt accustomed to humans—it probably expected her to feed it. She sighed and bent to scratch under its chin. "You'll be disappointed," she warned it. "I don't have anything for you, and I don't make a habit of feeding strays."

It wandered off eventually, but the next morning when she stepped out the front door to walk into town and buy some provisions, it was sitting there licking its paw, and paused to look up at her and chirp hopefully.

"You do not live here," she said. "And I'm not going to feed you. Find someone else."

She set off down the road, and the cat did not follow. When she got to town, she was greeted with careful politeness, as always; the inhabitants had long since grown accustomed to having a sorceress in their midst (though not, she was pleased to note, _too_ accustomed).

"Lady Yennefer," said the baker, with a half-bow. "It's been a while. I hope you're well?"

"Quite well," she said, unsmiling. "I was away on business. Two large loaves, please."

It went similarly at the grocer, and the cheesemonger. She stopped by the local wise woman as well, to sell some of her stock—she had found it simpler to act as a wholesaler, rather than deal with the customers herself. Of course, anyone wanting something more special was directed to leave a message for Yennefer; the wise woman had limited magic, but enough to send a bird with a message to the cottage outside town.

At the butcher, she nodded through the polite greetings, bought a couple weeks worth of meat, and then surprised herself by asking after any scraps or offal. It was all handed to her in brown paper packages, and as she made her way home she told herself all the reasons not to feed a stray cat that seemed to want to live in her magically-enhanced house.

The cat was waiting at the door when she got back. She sighed, unwrapped a package, and tore off a chunk of liver and tossed it on the ground. 

"You're a fool," she said to the cat as it gnawed eagerly at the meat, and went inside.

—

The next step, of course, was for the cat to take up residence inside the house. It was impossible for any person or creature to enter without Yennefer's permission, of course, but the cat didn't seem to know that, and simply followed her inside one day when she returned from her next trip to town, and the thought of kicking it out and reworking her wards made her tired. She put out some meat for it in the kitchen, and a bowl of water, and put away the bread she'd bought. The baker's daughter had been working this morning, a young woman who looked fourteen or thereabouts, with strong arms and a ruddy, smiling face. She always smiled at Yennefer especially, a shy little grin, and a cursory glance at her thoughts showed that she was nursing something of a crush.

She was the right age for it, Yennefer supposed, but it made her uneasy. She'd never—she couldn't remember ever feeling that way, as a girl. Oh, she'd peeked at the men working in the fields sometimes, their shirts off and strong backs shining with sweat, and felt a stirring; at Aretuza, even after she'd fallen into her affair with Istredd, she'd watched the other girls undressing occasionally and imagined things that had her touching herself furiously later that night. But a _crush_ was something else, youthful and innocent and hopeful, and she'd never been any of those things. The baker must be a good man, she thought, for his daughter to smile like that.

The thought made her sad and she pushed it away, thinking instead as she made her lunch about what to work on that afternoon. She'd stopped at the bookseller, who knew by now that she could count on Yennefer to purchase certain more obscure items, and bought a well-worn copy of Canshale's _Metamorphoses_. She was more interested in the marginalia from the previous owner than the text itself, which she'd read years ago and found wanting. But there had been potential in some of the formulas, and seeing what another mage had made of it might be enlightening.

The cat hopped onto her lap as she ate, interrupting her thoughts. She glared at it sternly, expecting it to try to steal some of the cold meat she'd sliced, but it seemed contented with the cheap cuts she'd thrown it and only curled up in her lap purring, a loud and rusty sound. She pet it with her left hand and ate with her right, and when she was done she went to the library and sat down with the _Metamorphoses_ and her own journal.

The margin notes were written in a crabbed, difficult hand, but after a dozen pages or so she got the hang of reading it. It was difficult, at first, to tell much about the mage who had written them. There wasn't much extensive commentary, only suggestions for substitutions and notes on results, occasional references to other texts, definitions of obscure terms, and the like. 

A pattern began to emerge, eventually, of the sections of the text that had been marked up. Spells for changing one's surface features were lightly marked; spells on healing disfigurements, injuries, and tumors were barely touched. The section on countering magical damage to the body was scribbled on somewhat, and the fifth chapter—on changing a man to a woman, and vice versa—was so heavily marked that it was hard to read the original text in places.

Yennefer felt her heartbeat pick up as she read. Was it possible that the last owner of this book had been searching for the same answer as she was? Perhaps for a different reason, but the goal seemed much the same. Every fertility spell she'd ever found had focused on repairing damage to the womb and related organs; if they dealt with regeneration of tissue it was on a small scale. This, though—

She took a deep breath and forced herself calm. To get excited without reason would do no good at all. She focused her attention on the spell for turning a man into a woman, and carefully read the notes in the margin:

_1/13. Much more solid theory compared to Anzusis. High risk. Refined arachas venom difficult to get._

_1/29. Tried substituting refined centipede venom for arachas, no effect._

_3/5. Substituted black serpent venom, caused chills, pain. No other effect._

The cramped notes continued, a list of substitutions and alterations that either did nothing or caused damage. At the bottom of the page, though, where there was barely room for it, one more note had been squeezed:

_2/17. Obtained refined arachas venom from Silvine. Successful result, but incomplete. Will try repeating further._

She sat very still, reading the words over and over. There were no further notes—no further writing at all in the whole book, after that spell. What did "incomplete" mean? What had happened to them? There was no way of knowing; the ink was aged, decades old at the least, and the bookseller had had no idea of the book's provenance. Had it been a man who felt that she should be a woman? She had known such a woman at Aedirn, though Alisette hadn't had access to magic like this (as Yennefer had discovered during a very pleasant tumble). Yennefer had heard of such spells, but if it required arachas venom—refined, no less—it was no wonder few were able to make use of it. Venemous arachas were vanishingly rare these days, obtaining the venom more or less required the services of a witcher, and the refinement process needed an experienced expert. She had mentioned to Geralt, once, that if he came across a venemous arachas she would dearly appreciate him getting the venom for her, but nothing had come of it in the years since, and every year there were fewer other witchers she might enlist.

She would have to alter the spell, of course, for her circumstances. Gods knew what would happen if she cast it as it stood, but she didn't fancy any alteration to her external form, particularly not in the regions the spell was concerned with. But if she could extract the core of it, the _internal_ changes—perhaps regeneration had been the wrong tack to take. There was nothing left there to regenerate, after all. Maybe a spell that built a womb out of nothing would actually work.

She closed the book, leaving a slip of paper in the relevant page, and started planning how she would get ahold of the venom.

—

Most mornings she woke with a snatch of song running through her head— _Cold blows the wind to my true love, and gently drops the rain_ — _I will die, I will die, the young captain did cry_ — _Oh the rain falls on my yellow locks, and the dew soaks my skin_ — _But hold me fast, and fear me not, I'll do to you no harm_ —and she had to concentrate to put it away, out of mind. She had never cared much about music, before. 

One morning when she woke, though, there was only silence; not even the blurry recollection of a dream. There was a bird waiting for her outside with a letter. The seal was familiar, but she couldn't place it. 

She sat at the kitchen table, cat twining around her ankles, and opened it, skipping to the bottom for the signature. She read it and raised her eyebrows; it had been almost twenty years since she'd heard that name.

Paying somewhat more attention, she read the letter from the beginning. It began as a simple greeting from an old friend—although "friend" might be a stretch for Herewold; at Aedirn the more proper term had been "ally." But he had always treated her with the respect due to her position, even when Demavend blatantly had not, and he had never tried to fuck her, which put him ahead of much of the rest of the court.

 _My dear Lady Yennefer,_ it began, and continued in a similarly courteous vein. _You may have heard by now that I departed Aedirn's court some time ago—or you may not have; perhaps I flatter myself as to my importance. But after the rumors spread of what had happened to you, and Demavend's cowardly refusal to punish Lyria's audacity in attempting to murder his sorceress, I simply could not tolerate remaining,_ and so forth. It was obvious that what he really meant was that a court without a mage wasn't prestigious enough for his ambitions, but she appreciated the attempt at flattery.

 _I have returned to my ancestral home to help my father manage our lands,_ he continued, _and a terrible problem has arisen of a magical nature. It involves a curse, but I am not at liberty to explain the details in writing—_ Of course he wasn't, she thought; that would be far too convenient— _But in all my years, I have never encountered a mage of such unparalleled power and skill as you, and it is my hope that you might meet with me to discuss the issue, and perhaps solve it, for I do not doubt your ability to do so in the slightest._ She skimmed past another sentence or two of praise before something caught her eye.

_Of course, I do not ask this of you as a mere favor; I would not so far presume upon our acquaintance, pleasant though it may have been. I can offer you a reward: a pint of purified arachas venom, which I am given to understand is extremely valuable in creating potions, and rather difficult to obtain in quantity. I offer this to you whether or not you can solve my family's problem, so long as you make your best effort to do so in good faith, for I trust that you will do nothing less._

The letter continued with a meeting place and time—a tavern called the Elver's Rest in the town of Chesna, a week from today, which was just enough time to get there by horse. It finished, of course, with the requisite courtesies, to which she paid no attention at all.

Yennefer put the letter down, picking idly at the wax seal as she thought. It was less than wise to run off on some unknown, unspecified errand for someone she hadn't spoken to in two decades. But the venom...she could find some on her own, eventually. But it would probably take years, or longer. Even if she could ask Geralt again—and that was the last thing she wanted to do right now—there was no guarantee he'd be able to find it, or that she would be able to refine it with the equipment she had access to. To have some simply handed to her like this...

And of course, there was also the simple fact that she was _bored._

Sighing, she picked up the cat. "You'll be on your own for a little while," she told it. "I hope you haven't forgotten how to hunt." It rubbed its face against hers, purring, and she let it for a moment until it grew restless and squirmed out of her arms.

It didn't take long to pack the few things she would need. Chesna wasn't too far, about five or six days by horse. She didn't care for long riding, but she could manage it.

Before she left, she summoned the raven. "Keep watch," she told it, and watched the magic swirl in its glistening black eyes before it vanished into smoke. Then she walked into town and bought a horse and saddle.

— 

Chesna was bigger than she remembered—she'd last been there just over forty years ago—and there was a wall around it that hadn't been there before. A small crowd was gathered in front of the gates when she arrived in the morning; she rode closer, but not quite close enough to draw the attention of the three guards who were currently arguing with a merchant and his wagon. 

Paused about ten yards away, she whispered a few words to enhance her hearing. It was meant for the guards and the merchant, but the first voice that reached her ears wasn't theirs, but another, entirely more familiar one.

"Just wait," Geralt said. "Have a little patience." Her eyes scanned the little crowd and landed on him immediately, and with him, of course—

"Come on, I'm sure I can get us in," Jaskier said, wheedling. They were both on horseback, Geralt on Roach and Jaskier on a grey gelding, and Jaskier smiled brilliantly at Geralt, who responded with a shake of the head and a half-smile that, for him, was practically dripping with fondness.

She stared at them longer than she meant to, frozen, feeling that same familiar _pull_ toward Geralt that she always did, and a wholly new pull toward Jaskier that she didn't know what to do with—and suddenly Geralt was tilting his head, eyes narrowing slightly before focusing on her. He looked surprised, but only a little, and his jaw tightened as they stared at each other.

Jaskier, of course, followed his gaze. She looked away immediately, involuntarily, but he was already riding over to her, Geralt not far behind.

"Yennefer!" He smiled at her just the way he had smiled at Geralt, pulling his horse to a stop alongside her, but then seemed to struggle for what to say next. 

"Jaskier," she said, nodding.

"It's good to see you," Geralt said. There was a haltingness to it and a distinct silence where he usually would have finished with, _Yenn._ It surprised her, how much she hated that silence.

When she didn't say anything, they glanced at each other, and a silent conversation passed between them that she couldn't decipher. They seemed...closer, somehow, more in tune with each other. She remembered that fond half-smile and thought, _oh, of course._ So Jaskier had gotten what he wanted after all.

She took a breath, and let coldness spread all through her. "What do you want?" she said, looking at them both in turn. Jaskier seemed surprised, like she'd knocked him off-kilter.

"I just...wanted to say hello," he said slowly. "I've missed you. I'm glad you're okay."

"Was there some reason I shouldn't be?"

He hesitated, and his face was so ridiculously open. She could see every thought pass across it—hurt, and worry, and longing, and none of it made sense. "Well," he said finally, tentatively, "you weren't the last time I saw you."

"That was weeks ago." She didn't meet his eyes, or Geralt's either. She wanted to look at Geralt, wanted to see how he was looking at her, if it was the same. But she didn't dare. If he would just say something—

"Are you...angry?" Jaskier asked. He seemed almost afraid of the answer, as if it might wound him.

In the distance, the argument between the merchant and the guards had reached some kind of climax; there was a final burst of shouting, and then the gate creaked open. Yennefer closed her eyes, just for a moment.

"I'm not angry with you, Jaskier," she said, "because I don't know you. And you don't know me. So kindly stop acting like you do." She fixed her eyes over his shoulder, not wanting to see the pain in his expression. It hurt her to look at it, like some obscure memory.

"Yenn," Geralt did say then, softly and reproachfully, and it felt so good for a moment before she remembered not to let it that she lost her hold on her anger, just a little.

"Don't call me that," she snapped, hating the passion in her own voice. "Not now." And before she could say anything else she didn't mean to, she dug her heels into her horse's sides and made her way towards the gate at a quick trot, ignoring Jaskier's plaintive cry of her name behind her.

The guard in front raised a hand and started to say something as she approached. Without slowing down, she waved a hand in front of them, moving her fingers in a simple motion, and all three of their faces went blank as they stepped aside. She hurried through the open gate and kept going until she heard it close behind her.

—

She had made good time traveling, but not more than she'd expected, which meant the meeting was that evening. It was easy enough to find the specified tavern, even amid the rambling warren of new streets that had sprung up over the last few decades as the town had grown into a small city. The sign was distinctive—an eel curled around a mug—and she almost smiled wondering what innkeeper had chosen that particular name. 

She stabled her horse, giving a coin to the boy, and went inside to buy a room for the night, but the prospect of spending all day sitting in a dim narrow room was even more offputting than the worry that she might run into Geralt and Jaskier again. The encounter had left her thrumming under her skin, and she was beyond grateful that it seemed to be a market day, the streets crowded with people and stalls to get lost in. Still, she pulled the hood up on her cloak, though the heat of the day beat down on her increasingly as the hours passed.

She didn't run into them, but her thoughts kept wandering that way nonetheless. What she'd said to Jaskier had been true—they'd never even had a conversation as adults, in large part because it wasn't in her nature to extend the hand of friendship to someone who greeted her with teeth bared. She'd always had a vague tinge of regret that he so obviously hated her, because he was...charming, after all; the sort of toy she might have enjoyed playing with, otherwise. 

In another sense, though, her words had been a lie; they knew each other frighteningly well now. She knew that he was kind, and patient, and often got frustrated but never took it out on anyone vulnerable, and avoided responsibility but when saddled with it never failed to live up to it. And he knew—she didn't like to think about what he knew, now. He and Geralt both, and she didn't know which was more galling.

It wasn't that they'd seen her body before her transformation. That meant shit-all; everyone knew sorceresses were ugly before they were changed. But they'd seen her before the _real_ transformation, the one that had taken place at Aretuza long before her ascension. They'd seen her weak, and wounded, and trusting, and—and they hadn't _cared._ They still didn't seem to care.

She turned abruptly away from the leather bag she'd been examining and walked off into a thick crowd, letting herself be jostled and pushed for a minute before opening a path, just to get her mind clear again. She kept it carefully blank for the rest of the afternoon, browsing herbs and jewelry and even a hedge witch's shop, that last more for the amusement value than any real interest; nibbling at some meat and vegetables roasted on a stick for lunch and wishing she had a knife and fork and plate; wandering uphill to the newly built finer area of the city, where the successful merchants and the alderman lived, and mentally criticizing the garish architecture.

Before long the sun was sinking in the sky, and she made her way back to the Elver's Rest. It wasn't time for the meeting yet, but when she stepped inside, eyes adjusting to the dimness, she spotted Herewold immediately—hair gone mostly grey, jowls hanging a little lower, but with the same quickness about the eyes—and his gaze latched onto her almost as quickly, and he smiled and beckoned.

"Lady Yennefer," he said, with a little bow of the head. She inclined hers slightly in return.

"Herewold," she said. "You look well."

"Ah, no need to flatter me," he said, smiling. He had always had a genuine smile, and it was no different now, only more lined. "I've aged, I know. While you look as lovely as ever."

She rolled her eyes. "I hope you plan on telling me why you've asked for me. And some proof that you actually have the arachas venom wouldn't go amiss either."

"Straight to business," he said, and chuckled. "Will you at least share a drink with me? And then, I promise, I'll give you all the details."

It was unsettling how easy it was to settle back into the exchange of courtesies and barbs, after almost twenty years away from court. But she nodded, and gave a half smile, and he rose and went to the bar and brought back two mugs. 

He raised his mug. "To Aedirn's court," he said, "and its grim descent in reputation since you left."

She huffed and raised hers as well. "To the ruin of enemies," she said, and drank—a sip, first, because caution never hurt, and when it tasted only of mediocre ale, she finished the rest, set down her mug, and said, "Now tell me."

He nodded. "My family owns quite a bit of the land around these parts. Some years ago, my father employed a mage—not one affiliated with the Brotherhood—on a, shall we say, personal matter. He was not completely satisfied with the outcome, and declined to pay what he owed." He paused, sighing heavily. "A few weeks later, in one of the small farming villages, all the farmland around it was mysteriously blighted, and half the crops withered on the vine. And a month after that, the stillbirths started. Every woman who gave birth there—not a one of the infants survived."

The phantom sensation of wet dirt tingled in her hands, the cool give of a little round face under her fingertips. She forced her face to stillness.

"I had all the villagers moved," Herewold went on, "but the same thing happened in the next village—crops dead, babies stillborn. Then in a different village. Then another. It happened slowly, you understand. Even now it has yet to reach Chesna, and two thirds of our farmland remains in good condition. But what was blighted has not recovered, and each year more children are born dead."

Yennefer went to sip from her mug, then remembered that she'd drained it. "Have you tried contacting the original mage you cheated? If they cursed you, I'm sure they could lift it."

Herewold grimaced. "I've been searching for the man for two years. Either he gave us a false name, or he's dead, or he's somewhere far across the Continent. There's been no trace. I assure you, were it as easy as making restitution, even my tight-fisted father would have done it by now."

"Hm," she said, because she should at least give the pretense of considering. She thought of the children running wild through the streets she'd wandered all day, shouting and weeping and giggling. Thought of them all silent and still, white-faced. "And the venom?"

Herewold shifted in his seat, a little uncomfortably. "Of course," he said, "of course. I have it here." He patted the bag beside him.

She raised her eyebrows. "You're not afraid I'll take it from you and leave? You—" She broke off for a moment, a sudden wave of dizziness rushing over her. Shaking her head, she continued. "You couldn't stop me."

He smiled, and there was something unsettling about it—something hidden suddenly showing, like he'd been veiled until now. "I would never doubt your honor, Lady Yennefer."

The dizziness returned, and this time she didn't wait for it to dissipate. No sooner had she raised her hand and spoken the first word of the spell, though, than the hooded woman at the next table stood and released a wave of power from her outstretched hand, slamming Yennefer back in the booth, head cracking against the wall with a burst of pain that whited out her vision for a moment.

It only lasted a second before she stumbled to her feet, but the hooded woman had been joined by a hooded man, and the vertigo was getting worse. _Fuck,_ she thought wildly, _you just had to drink the whole thing, didn't you?_

She managed to throw up a shield against the mages' next attacks, but it was far more difficult than it should have been. If she weren't drugged, she would have been a match for the two of them, she was sure. As it was, she made the only choice left to her: she pulled her dagger and lunged across the table, pressing it to Herewold's throat firmly enough that he flinched in pain as a drop of blood escaped.

"They work for you?" she snarled, struggling to hold her hand steady. "Then call them off, and you can live."

His face was pale, but he didn't look more than mildly concerned. "I'm sorry, Yennefer," he said. "That was a good idea. But I'm afraid it won't work." And to her horror, he reached up and drew the dagger from her unresisting hand. She turned to look at the mages and saw, with her other sight, the lines of magical force extending towards her, some already woven around her body, which was sinking now, out of her control, muscles slowly going limp.

Vision dimming around the edges, she summoned her last shred of strength and spat directly in his face. His disgusted grimace filled her vision, and it wasn't the worst thing to see, she supposed, as she fell into blackness.

— 

She burst into wakefulness struggling and gasping, feeling crushed under a heavy weight, certain she wouldn't be able to move. But her arms and legs were free, she realized, and breath came easily once she was able to calm down a little. It hadn't been physical restraint that she'd sensed, but magical—the dimeritium cuffs sat surprisingly lightly on her wrists.

Her head hurt like a demon, but that was probably the remnants of the drugs working through her system. Fuck, she'd been so stupid—of course there were concoctions that tasted of nothing, they were just exceedingly rare and hard to make. Herewold had two mages working for him, at least; from what she'd sensed of their power, the woman wouldn't be a problem if Yennefer were at her full strength. The man had vibrated with far more magical energy, but if she could avoid taking them both on at once...and if she could get the damned cuffs off, of course. That would be the first problem.

She glanced around at her surroundings, but there was hardly anything to see. She was in a bare room, though it was clean enough—there was a bucket in the corner that she quickly made use of—and had a narrow window set in the wall about ten feet up that let in some daylight. The door, of course, was locked when she tried to turn it, and the noise of the knob rattling stirred muffled voices outside for a moment. She was guarded, then.

There would be a visit from Herewold soon enough, no doubt. She sat and waited and thought about what a sentimental idiot she'd been, and vowed never to repeat it, and eventually, when she got bored, began vivisecting Herewold in her mind and imagining his screams.

The light through the narrow window spoke of mid-afternoon, which meant it had been about twenty four hours since she'd eaten anything (and that she'd been out for a damned long time; whoever mixed Herewold's poisons for him was clearly powerful). When her stomach started to rumble she grimaced and tried to ignore it. She'd been good at that, once, when meals had been uncertain and portions rarely enough, and that discipline had stuck with her through thirty years at Aedirn, surrounded by any luxury she cared to demand. Right now, though, whether it was the effects of the drugs or more changes wrought by her recent—experience—she was just damned hungry, and it grew harder to think about anything else.

When the lock clicked over and Herewold opened the door holding a plate and pitcher, she felt the tiniest twinge of relief and gratitude, quickly stomped out. He left the door open and she could see the guards, turned to watch her, just in case. It was rather flattering, considering she was restrained by dimeritium and they had taken her second dagger while she slept, which left her a rather slim woman half a foot shorter than Herewold; hardly a threat.

He bent to set the plate and pitcher of water in front of her—there was even a fork and spoon, though of course no knife—and stood back up. "It's not poisoned," he said. "Or drugged. It's just food and water."

She let out a bitter chuckle. "I'm supposed to believe you?"

He shrugged. "I'm not going to force-feed you, of course. But I'd rather you not die of thirst, so—" He bent again, picked up the pitcher, and took a healthy swallow. "At least drink?"

She was, she realized, fiercely thirsty, but she made no move to do as he asked. "So you lured me here with a lie, attacked me, imprisoned me—but you're concerned for my health?"

"It wasn't a lie," he said, and continued when she scoffed. "I mean, it mostly wasn't a lie. Everything about the curse is true. The crops, the dead infants. I only lied about your intended role in lifting it, and you can hardly blame me for that." There was a pleading earnestness in his voice, like it mattered to him if she blamed him or not, and it made her feel ill.

"So what am I here for, then, if not to lift your curse? A sacrifice?"

He winced, and she knew she'd hit on it. "I found the mage who cast the curse," he said. "That was the other lie, I suppose. He's agreed to lift it, but he says—it takes more power to lift than to cast. He needs a source, a powerful source."

Of course, she thought. A vessel, yet again. Inescapable. "You have two mages working for you," she pointed out. "I assume the man is the one you're speaking of, but the other? She can't serve?"

Herewold shook his head, and had the audacity to look sad about it. "Agnatha has worked for our family for decades," he said. "She loves this land, these people, as much as any one of us. If she had the power, she'd do it, but Thydonis says she's too weak. But you—" He gave her a crooked, reluctant smile. "You're the most powerful mage I've ever met, Yennefer. I knew you'd be strong enough. And he says that you are."

Somehow the fact that he'd been—mostly—genuine about his concern for his people made it all the more infuriating. But if he truly didn't want to kill her... "Let me try, then," she said, and fixed the image of a ghost-white, unmoving baby in her mind, infusing her voice with all the genuine care and softness she could summon. "If I'm so strong, don't you think I at least have a chance at lifting it without this bastard's help?" She held up her wrists. "Take these off, and I swear I won't harm you."

He gazed at her, heavy sadness weighing down on him visibly. "Yennefer," he said, and gods, was that _fondness_ in his voice? She held back a shudder. "I spent fifteen years at court with you. I know better than to trust your word."

She stared at him, stomach sinking, and tried to think—what to do, what to say—and couldn't. The past was folding in on itself at every turn, it seemed.

"Besides," he went on, "even if you don't kill me, you'll certainly kill Thydonis, and then if you can't lift the curse...I can't risk it."

"And if he kills me and then can't lift it? You'll be in the same position, but a murderer."

Herewold shook his head. "He made the spell," he said. "It'll be easier for him to undo it."

She snorted. "What, suddenly you know so much about how magic works?"

"Yennefer," he sighed, and there was real weariness in his eyes, and she hated him all the more for it. "Please. I won't ask you not to make this difficult, but..."

"I'll resist," she said, hating the note of desperation in her voice. "When he tries to use me. I can do that, you know—make it hard for him."

"I'm sure you can," he said. "And it would hurt you too. He promised me...he told me it's painless, if you don't fight back. But that's up to you, I suppose."

She fixed her gaze on him, as heavy as she could make it, until he looked away. "Tell me when, at least," she said. "When are you going to kill me? Tonight?"

"The night after tomorrow," he said. "At the full moon. Apparently that helps." He didn't look at her again before turning away, but he paused in the open doorway, shoulders slumping. "I really am sorry," he said. "But I don't have a choice. I hope you can see that."

"I see a coward," she said coldly, "piling sin upon sin. Your father cheated a man, and you're going to murder a woman to right his wrong."

He shook his head but didn't turn around as he left, and the door swung shut behind him, the click of the lock echoing loudly in her ears.

"Fuck," she muttered, and took a long drink of water from the pitcher. The food she resisted a while longer, but hunger gnawed at her, all the worse for its unfamiliarity, and after an hour or two she gave in and took a bite of the now-cold meat. She wondered if all her past endurance had been down to her magic, and hated the thought.

—

Yennefer could track the time fairly well by the sun coming through the window, and she watched the rays lengthen and dim as the next few hours crawled by. After that she tracked the quality of the darkness, and she judged it maybe an hour and a half past sunset when the door to her cell was flung open and two chained figures were shoved through—one tumbling to the ground with a pained grunt— before it slammed and locked behind them.

She shouldn't really have been surprised to see them. After all, fate seemed intent on entwining their paths, and she'd known they were in the city. But the fact that they were _here_ implied—

"What the fuck did you idiots do?" Despite herself, she rushed to Geralt where he lay on the ground, panting agonized breaths. He was covered in blood, chained hand and foot, and she instinctively felt for the wound before remembering she couldn't do anything about it. It was a nasty, deep thing in his gut, still slowly oozing, but it looked like most of the blood had come from a gash across his forehead that was deep enough a flash of bone peeked through.

Geralt met her eyes, lucid enough, but didn't speak, probably couldn't yet from whatever spell had been used on him. She snarled in frustration and whirled to face Jaskier, who had pulled himself up to his knees with his cuffed hands. His chains were noticeably more modest than Geralt's; apparently Herewold had a healthy fear of witchers, even wounded ones—either that, or he didn't think much of bards.

Her eyes flicked over Jaskier, but he seemed unharmed apart from a blooming black eye, though his shirt was speckled with blood—Geralt's, she assumed. "What did you _do?_ " she repeated sharply.

"Heard a rumor this morning about a magical tavern brawl," Jaskier said with a shrug. "Figured we ought to investigate, you know, just in case. Got the name of the other guy involved, and, well, you can probably figure out the rest."

She could, but it made no sense. They'd come for her, obviously. She stared at Jaskier and realized she was breathing hard, her heart racing. 

"I wasn't expecting you," she said finally, and ignored the way his face melted into sadness. She tilted her head towards Geralt. "What happened to him?"

Jaskier grimaced. "From the rumors, we thought there was only one mage to worry about," he said. "Turns out there are two."

Yennefer frowned. "You thought I got taken down by a single mage? Really?"

"Well, obviously we should have known better," he said, "but it's a little late now for remonstrations, so maybe we could just focus on the problem at hand? I assume—" His eyes flicked to her wrists, and he nodded. "Those suppress your magic, right?"

"Dimeritium." She nodded. "And they disarmed me, of course."

"Us too." He sighed, and crawled the few feet to Geralt's side. His hands were cuffed in front of him, at least; that might work in their favor. "I don't suppose you know any non-magical healing? I think the bleeding's mostly stopped, but..." Awkwardly, he touched the back of one cuffed hand to Geralt's pale cheek, gazing down at him. Geralt looked back up at him, tilting his face into the touch. "You're cold," Jaskier said to him quietly. "Is that just the blood loss?"

Geralt nodded, though it clearly took some effort. Yennefer felt vaguely as if she ought to look away, but she didn't. It was the exact sort of tenderness she had—rarely—exchanged with Geralt, in the panting moments after sex, before he fell asleep. And the way he looked at Jaskier was familiar, too.

(Jaskier had looked at her almost that same way, when she'd been little. He'd stroked her hair and smiled at her like he actually saw her. She'd enjoyed it, at the time.)

"I do know some healing," she said reluctantly, "but there's nothing I can do without supplies. The best thing for him now is to keep still and rest." It was a ghastly wound, but if he hadn't died yet, he would probably heal, she assumed—but her experience with witchers was limited. "He doesn't have to worry about infection, at least."

"Right, well, you heard her," Jaskier said, gazing down at Geralt with a strained smile. "Keep still and rest, sorceress's orders."

Geralt's eyes fluttered closed again and she fought the hateful urge to run her fingers through his hair. For a minute she just sat there, she and Jaskier on opposite sides of Geralt, watching him sleep and listening to his shallow breath—more labored than the rhythm she had been becoming familiar with, before.

"Well," Jaskier said finally. "Since we're here, you might as well tell me what's going on. Honestly I'm surprised that Herewold fellow didn't just have us both killed."

She sighed. "He doesn't want to kill anyone he doesn't have to. He's...not exactly ill-intentioned, aside from the part where he plans to sacrifice me for another mage to use as a power source."

"That's _kind of a big part,_ " Jaskier said, sounding surprisingly indignant. "And, what, he thinks he can just kill you and then let us go? Let _Geralt_ go? And Geralt won't kill him?"

In her long life, Yennefer had rarely made much use of anyone else's desire to protect her, except to manipulate them by projecting false fragility. There was simply no need, when she was stronger than just about anyone whose misguided chivalry might have sought to take her under their wing. Geralt wasn't stronger than her either, but it was startling how warm she felt at the thought of him avenging her death, even now.

"I doubt he knows how quickly witchers heal," she said. "In which case—"

"—we should avoid letting on," Jaskier finished, nodding. "But, look, I was hoping for a plan a little more proactive than waiting for you to be killed and then getting vengeance." His eyes lit on her cuffs again, and he reached out—slowly—to take one of her hands and turn it palm up. She let him, as much out of surprise as anything else. The underside of the cuff bore a tiny keyhole, no bigger than her pinky nail.

"I don't know who has the keys," she said, before he could ask. "I was unconscious when they put them on."

Jaskier's face fell a little, but he rallied quickly. "Well, someone does," he said. "We'll just have to find out who."

"You have two days," she said, and belatedly pulled her hand back. "The spell that mage needs me for takes place under the full moon. So I hope the two of you had some plan beyond getting yourselves captured and bleeding all over my cell."

"In our defense," Jaskier said, "that wasn't the _plan._ That just sort of happened."

She sighed and lay down, pillowing her head on her arm. "You should rest too," she said. "There's nothing we can do for now."

She could feel him looking at her, hear each breath he took as he started to speak and then stopped and let it out again, frustrated. Some wretched small part of her wanted to crawl over to him and lay down in his arms; she told herself it was muscle memory, persistent and stupid, and lay still.

— 

She woke gasping for breath again, with the feeling of something heavy pressing down on her. It was the cuffs, of course; being cut off from her magic felt as paralyzing as any chains. She felt like if she had to live with it much longer she would start pacing, like a leopard in a cage.

The first shafts of sunlight were just falling through the high window, and she took a deep breath—another—and leaned over to check on Geralt. The wound wasn't fully closed yet, but it was easily a week ahead of where it had been the night before, and relief overtook her, shivering through her body. Geralt opened his eyes as she touched it and she had to hold back the startled urge to pull her hand away.

"Yenn," he said, and reached a hand up to her face but stopped halfway, as if he was unsure of his welcome. _As he should be,_ she thought, but the bitterness was hard to summon. "You're all right."

"For now," she said, nodding. "You're doing better."

"We were so worried," he said, in a low voice, as though he were sharing a secret. It was terrifically unlike him to admit out loud to an emotion, and she had no idea how to respond.

Jaskier yawned, sparing her the need to say anything. He rubbed at his face and then yelped in pain, jerking his hand away from his black eye, which looked significantly nastier than it had when fresh. "Fuck," he said, and then, "well, that was restful. Nothing like a cold stone floor for a nice refreshing sleep." He sat up, looking between the two of them, and something—wistful? Hopeful?—crossed his face, too quick to read. "I don't know about you two, but I'm starving. Have they been feeding you?"

"Yes," she said. "Though I'm not sure if it's out of kindness or because I have to be healthy to be used as a source." They both grimaced at that. "He'll feed you too," she added. "If he kept you alive, he means to release you. Though—" She looked at Geralt; what little color was ever in his cheeks had returned, and while she had no doubt he was still in pain, it didn't show. "Maybe you shouldn't eat. I don't think he knows how fast you heal."

"Playing possum." Geralt nodded. "You have a plan, then?"

"Not quite," she said, "not yet. But every advantage helps."

"It might help if we knew more about what we're dealing with," Jaskier said. She didn't really want to tell them—she didn't really want to talk to them at all—but he was right, it could help.

So she told them about the letter, and the curse, and Herewold's apparently genuine desire to lift it, and the two mages—one powerful, one less so—until she was interrupted by the arrival of breakfast, this time brought by a fourth armed guard as the three stationed outside their cell watched, hands on their swords. 

Jaskier fell on it immediately, jamming three strips of bacon into his mouth at once before pausing and asking—somewhat muffled—"Wait, could this be poisoned?"

She snorted. "Very astute instincts you have. But no, I doubt it. I ate some last night."

"Thank the gods," Jaskier said, "because I was definitely going to eat it anyway. I didn't get lunch _or_ dinner yesterday, and I am famished beyond human endurance."

They ate, and Geralt took enough of his plate to make it look picked at before standing on legs that were only unsteady if you looked closely and, with a clanking of chains and an occasional hiss of pain, shuffling the length of the room around. He was careful enough, and it was a good idea for him to stay flexible and ready, but she thought of the gash in his stomach and watched him carefully the whole time; Jaskier, she noticed, did the same.

He was going to want to talk to her about this at some point, she realized—about him and Geralt, and her and Geralt, and the three of them. She didn't know which would be more unbearable—if Geralt didn't want her anymore, now that he knew her, or if he still did despite it. The thought of embracing him, kissing him, fucking him, and all the time he would look at her and _know_ —

She bit back the thoughts, swallowed them down to sit in her stomach, heavy and sour, and leaned against the wall, restlessness boiling inside her.

"I need to get out of these cuffs," she said when Geralt sat back down. 

"We're going to find the keys," Jaskier said, clearly trying to be reassuring. "We'll get you out, I promise."

"No," she said, and couldn't control the note of panic in her voice. "I need— _now._ " She looked at Geralt and held out her hands. "They're tight, but not that tight. If you broke my hand—"

He recoiled; in her peripheral vision she saw Jaskier do the same. " _No._ "

"I just need one hand," she said. "I'll be weakened but I'll still have some power. I just need _something._ And once I'm out I can stop the pain, at least long enough to get us out of here."

"Stop the pain," Jaskier said. "What about healing yourself? You know, so you're not maimed for life?"

She shrugged uncomfortably. "I know some healing. It's not my specialty, but I could probably regain some function." She turned to Geralt again, who looked ill. "Do my left hand, it won't matter as much. _Please._ " She thrust her arm towards him again. Slowly, he took her hand in both of his, holding it delicately.

"Geralt," Jaskier said sharply, "don't you dare. We're not even approaching that level of desperate."

"We are," he said, and squeezed her hand lightly. She closed her eyes, knowing even before he said it what his answer would be. "But I can't."

"You mean you won't," she said, wrenching her hand back. He nodded.

"If the time comes," he said. "Then I'll try."

She met his eyes and found only sincerity, and nodded.

"What the fuck," Jaskier said. "Nobody is crushing anybody's hand bones today, or tomorrow, or _ever._ "

She glared at him. "That's not up to you, is it?"

He turned a plaintive gaze onto Geralt, who looked away. "It would be better than letting her die," he said, and that seemed to put an end to the conversation.

For a few hours there was silence, or close enough—Jaskier insisted on humming snatches of this and that, and it wasn't quite annoying enough to make him stop—and she felt that she should be coming up with some kind of plan. But there was no way they were escaping alive without getting her out of the cuffs, and unless Geralt had a change of heart, there was no way to do that without the key, and they didn't know who held the key, and they couldn't exactly go and find out. She didn't think it was Herewold—she had been distracted when he'd come to see her last night, focused on trying to sway him, but surely she would have noticed a ring of keys, or a pendant around his neck. Besides, the dimeritium cuffs surely didn't belong to him—where would he have gotten them? He was only a minor noble, and one whose lands were failing to produce at that; he didn't have the funds.

It was mostly likely this Thydonis he'd mentioned, then. Dimeritium wasn't exactly easy for a mage to obtain either, especially one working outside the Brotherhood, but he was powerful, and that went a long way.

"Keep an eye on the male mage, if he comes in here," she said. Jaskier stopped his idle humming and looked up, and Geralt, who had been lying down and meditating, opened his eyes. "His name's Thydonis. He's the one who's going to do the ritual, and he's probably the one who has the keys to my cuffs."

"Right," Jaskier said. "So what's the plan? Geralt surprise attacks him as a distraction, I lift the keys and unlock you?"

She eyed him critically. "Much of a pickpocket, are you?"

He shrugged, grinning crookedly. "I've got clever fingers," he said, waggling them at her. "Comes of all the lute-playing. And if he's got Geralt at his throat, he won't be paying much attention to anything else."

"That...might work," she said, still doubtful. "If he's carrying them somewhere you can get at them."

"Fingers crossed, then," Jaskier said. He looked at Geralt, scanning him with a critical eye. "Don't take this the wrong way, Geralt, but I wish you looked worse."

"I could lose more blood," Geralt offered.

" _No,_ " Yennefer and Jaskier said at the same time. "Besides," she went on, "they completely disarmed all three of us. How would you even..."

"I still have my teeth," Geralt said, like that was a normal suggestion.

"No, no, and absolutely not," Jaskier said firmly, looking a little queasy. "And you know what, I'd appreciate it if both of you could quit suggesting horrible ways to injure yourselves, because it's really not good for my emotional well-being as someone who would rather not watch either of you be maimed, wounded, or ripped open." He huffed. "That said...maybe if you curled around the wound again, like last night? Like it still hurts."

"It does still hurt."

"Like it still hurts a _lot,_ then."

"It does still hurt a lot," Geralt said, but he assumed the posture he'd had when they'd tossed him in the night before. It worked unsettlingly well—with his face half-hidden against the floor and his legs bent and pulled up against him, not only did he look far more like someone in agony, but the wound—and just how healed it was already—was mostly hidden from view.

"Yes, good," Jaskier said, and clapped his hands. "Just do that whenever you hear someone coming."

Geralt nodded and unfurled himself back to lying flat on his back. "Not the best position for attacking from, though," he pointed out.

"Well, hopefully the surprise will make up for that," Jaskier said. "Also, your 'not the best' is a normal person's 'frighteningly good', so I'm not that concerned."

There was something uncomfortably soothing about listening to the two of them. She'd never had much chance to do it before, Jaskier tending to make himself scarce shortly after she appeared. And when she'd been little, before, it had been her and Geralt chattering endlessly to each other and to Jaskier, and Jaskier listening with a little smile and nodding.

She let herself get so caught up in their back-and-forth rhythm—well, mostly Jaskier's back-and-forth, and Geralt nodding and hmm-ing—that she almost started in surprise when Jaskier turned to her and said, "You know, you told us this Herewold guy lured you here with a letter, but I wouldn't have thought anything could lure you. Much less trick you. You've always struck me as very, ah...self-sufficient."

She did not allow herself to wonder what other words he might have been choosing between in that pause. "He offered me purified arachas venom," she said shortly, and hoped that would be the end of it.

Of course it wasn't. "Arachas venom," Geralt said, sitting up and looking at her curiously. "That's used for transformation, isn't it? Physically?"

Pressing her lips together, she nodded. His gaze sharpened.

"I thought...when sorceresses undergo their ascensions," he said. "Don't they fix everything that's wrong?"

"They do," she said, and wanted to look away but refused. "At the cost of...other capabilities."

Jaskier made a confused noise, but Geralt, of course, looked tender and sad, and not a little surprised. "You want to be a mother?"

"Wait, they _sterilized_ you?" Jaskier said, and he only sounded horrified. She did look away from them then, fixed her eyes on the high window and took a deep breath.

"I want my choice back," she said. "And anyway. What if I did?" Some twisted, stupid impulse pushed her on. "Do you think I'd be a bad one?"

Neither of them said anything for a moment, and she focused on controlling her breath. Then, "No," Jaskier said quietly. "I don't."

Her eyes flew to him unbidden, and her mouth parted, but she had no idea what to say.

—

There was silence, then, for a long time. Geralt went back to meditating, kneeling in total stillness, eyes closed, and Jaskier just seemed to be thinking, though he kept stealing glances at her when he thought she wasn't looking. Yennefer watched the progress of the light in the high window and kept her mind carefully blank as best she could. It was a struggle; her mind kept circling back to Jaskier's soft negation.

She knew it wasn't true. Hadn't she realized that weeks ago, when she'd first weighed herself against him, the only good parent she'd had the opportunity to know? She didn't have the patience, the interest, the endless reserves of love. And six months as a cherished child was nothing, really, against all the years of her life that had shaped her into someone to whom tenderness was foreign. Someone stronger, better, far more powerful. She had never thought to regret it before.

A memory came to her then, abrupt and crystalline in its sharpness: _Remember that scared girl...totally unaware of her power? I want to go back home to Aedirn and never be her again._

Well, she had succeeded. Not even another magical transformation had managed to change her essential nature. Like most of the successes in her life, it tasted bitter in her mouth.

The same guard arrived with another meal just before sunset. The meat was cut into pieces this time, so she didn't even miss a knife—a pointless touch of cheap compassion meant, no doubt, to make Herewold feel better about himself. Yennefer and Jaskier ate in silence as Geralt continued to meditate; it felt as if her own thoughts weighed heavily on all three of them, somehow.

Barely a minute after the noise of forks scraping on plates had stopped, Geralt stiffened and said, "Someone's coming." He hastily arranged himself on the floor in his wounded posture, and about ten seconds later she heard footsteps, and then a key in the lock.

Thydonis didn't even look at Geralt and Jaskier as he entered, his gaze—piercing, knowing—fixed on Yennefer. She stood, though it felt almost pointless. Her eyes flashed to his belt, and sure enough, there was a delicate chain with two small keys hanging from it. A glance at Jaskier and Geralt confirmed that they had seen it too. She saw Geralt tense, preparing to spring up and attack, but then the other mage—Agnatha, it was—entered the room, and _she_ didn't look at Yennefer at all, her gaze fixed on the two men as she wove a spell between her hands.

Yennefer recognized its energy—a simple paralysis spell, which under normal circumstances wouldn't be enough to stop Geralt, resistant as he was. But he was still injured, and more importantly, Agnatha surely had more spells at her disposal if she needed them.

 _Fuck,_ Yennefer thought; they should have anticipated this. She'd _known_ there were two of them. There was nothing to do about it now, though, and she glared at Thydonis with all the contempt she could muster, curling her lip into a sneer. "A little early, aren't you?" 

He chuckled. "Don't worry, Lady Yennefer. I'm not here to kill you tonight. There are simply some...preparations that must be made, to ensure you'll be suitable for the ritual." He stepped closer to her, and it was a struggle not to step back. Instead she lifted her chin and looked straight at him. It was gratifying, the way he squirmed under her gaze, but only for a moment before shrugging it off and reaching out a hand. He placed it firmly on her forehead and she felt the familiar nudge of a mental intrusion.

It didn't hurt yet, but she knew that it would if she resisted. She resisted anyway—this she could do without access to her magic; it was a simple matter of mental discipline. Of course, it would have been far stronger with magic behind it, and she knew there was ultimately no hope. He would break through her barriers, probably sooner than later. But she grit her teeth and pushed back anyway.

A brief frown crossed Thydonis' face, and then he smiled a smile that was much like the grin of a man groping a barmaid as she searched frantically for a polite way out. "That's very brave of you," he said, "but you know it's not going to work."

The push at her mind redoubled in force and she fought to keep the pain from showing on her face. It was bearable, still, but it wouldn't be much longer. She fought back, and the pain got worse, and worse, until she fell to her knees with a choked-off grunt. 

"Stop it!" Jaskier barked, his voice tight with anguish. Her eyes flew to him and found him struggling uselessly against the paralysis spell, staring at her with wide eyes. Beside him, Geralt lay on the floor as he had been; she couldn't see his face, but the fierce tension in his back was clear.

She tried to shake her head at Jaskier— _don't interfere, you'll only get hurt_ —but at that moment Thydonis forced his way past her barriers with one final hard shove, and the pain was so shocking she couldn't move, couldn't even see anything but agonizingly bright white The sound she made reminded her with sudden blinding clarity of her transformation all those years ago, and for a dizzyingly long moment she was back there, struggling and screaming despite her best efforts not to. 

Only, back then the agony that had wracked her had been suffused with deep satisfaction, even pride. Now she shuddered on her knees and moaned in a voice that wasn't, couldn't be hers, and still Thydonis pushed deeper, spreading his tendrils through her mind like poison vines, and she couldn't bear it and yet it continued.

Distantly, through the haze of pain, she heard Jaskier shouting, his voice thick with tears. It was what she held onto as all her resistance crumbled away and Thydonis continued to search for whatever it was he meant to find, tossing her mind apart like a thief ransacking a house. The whole ordeal seemed to last hours, but when the pain finally receded and she could see again, she knew it had been mere minutes.

Thydonis pulled his hand away and she collapsed onto the floor, shivering, her face wet with sweat and tears. She hated him so much then that it burned in her like a towering bonfire, but she couldn't even move as he gazed down at her.

"So you really are as powerful as Herewold said," he said, sounding richly satisfied. "I think this is going to go quite well." He knelt next to her, smiling, and brushed her hair away from her face as she glared at him helplessly.

"Get your fucking hands off her," Jaskier snarled. He sounded breathless, exhausted from struggling against the paralysis spell, no doubt. Thydonis chuckled and pulled his hands away theatrically as he stood.

"You needn't worry for your friend's virtue, little man. I have no interest in such petty cruelties, only in the power she contains."

"She doesn't _contain_ anything," Jaskier said, spitting out the word like it was something vile. "She _has_ power. A lot more than you, I'd wager."

Thydonis let out another hateful little chuckle. "That's a wager you'd win, friend. Luckily for me, it hardly matters now, does it?"

Yennefer wanted to cover her ears, to not hear his slimy voice anymore, but thankfully those seemed to be his final words; she heard twin footsteps leaving, and a murmured incantation from Agnatha lifting the paralysis. As soon as the door swung shut, Jaskier and Geralt hurried over to her, and she cringed without meaning to from their outstretched hands.

Neither of them touched her, though she could feel how much they wanted to, and she finally let her eyes close and breathed through the residual tremors and shocks of pain. It helped, having them near, even though it shouldn't have made any difference at all.

"Yenn," Geralt said, his voice rough and raw, "Yenn, I'm so sorry, I couldn't stop him—I couldn't risk letting them know, not when I couldn't win—"

"I know," she said, horrified at the trembling in her voice. "Don't, I know."

"Yennefer," Jaskier said, and she could hear the hitch in his voice, the tears choking his throat. "Yennefer, gods, fuck..." He took a deep, shaky breath. "Can we help? What do you need?"

She had to think about it. It had been so long since she had suffered with anyone nearby who gave a damn—anyone who, as she had to admit now, she could trust.

"Touch me," she said finally. "Not too much. Just—everything feels wrong."

She kept her eyes closed as Geralt's hand took one of hers, swallowing it up in the way she had always loved. The hand stroking her hair, then, was Jaskier's, and it did help. She breathed into the twin sensations, letting them gradually wash away the shivering sense of violation and wrongness.

Jaskier had done this for her sometimes when she was little, when she woke from nightmares and needed to be soothed. And of course, she'd spent half her days holding Geralt's hand—the same size as her own, back then—running from one end of the city to the other on their various adventures. It was as if time was blurring, the present sinking down into the past, so that when she heard Jaskier start to hum she wasn't sure if it was real or a memory, and couldn't bring herself to care.

—

"Here," Jaskier said, "let's practice with a coin, to start. It's easier." He reached into a pocket and produced a gold crown. "Now remember, when you palm something, the key is keeping your fingers loose and lightly curled. That way it looks natural. You do the holding with your palm muscles."

He put the coin in his left hand and demonstrated, squeezing it between the meat of his thumb and the soft ridge below his fingers, then turning his hand around to hang by his side. It did look natural; if she hadn't known the coin was there she would never have guessed he held anything.

She raised her eyebrows. "Where'd you learn that? Doesn't seem much call for sleight of hand as a bard."

"Ah, well, you'll find I have many secrets," he said, smiling in a way he probably thought was mysterious but just looked a little sleazy. "Now you try. It'll be easier for you, actually, since your hands are smaller."

She took the coin and, after a couple tries, managed to replicate the feat, her hand hanging by her side with the coin tucked securely within. Jaskier adjusted her fingers a bit—a light touch she found oddly uncomfortable—but he was right; the coin was larger in her hand, and easy to hold.

"Now," he said, "let's try with something smaller. Those keys looked pretty tiny."

She loosened her hand, letting the coin fall. "Isn't the plan for you to unlock me anyway?"

He shrugged. "I don't think we can count on any of our plans working exactly as...well, as planned. Maybe I'll have time to unlock you. Maybe I won't. If I can get the keys without Thydonis noticing..."

"If he comes alone this time," Geralt said. He was sitting against the wall and watching them, his wound, though not fully healed, far enough along that (he claimed) it hardly hurt anymore. "If they both come..."

"Well, you attacking either one of them will probably be a pretty good distraction," Jaskier said. "I just need ten seconds to get the keys without him looking at me." Geralt looked at him skeptically and he sighed. "I don't like it either, all right? But I haven't heard a better plan out of either one of you, so it looks like this is what we're going with."

Geralt grunted, but let it go. Privately, Yennefer agreed with him—their chances were pathetically slim assuming Thydonis had any sense at all—but she just couldn't sit there and do nothing and wait to die. So she kept practicing palming with Jaskier, using a copper and then a pearl.

("Why do you just _have_ a pearl?" she asked when he produced it.

"Because it's a convenient way to carry around a lot of money," he said. "Also, it's pretty.")

The smaller items were harder, and Jaskier kept adjusting her grip and the way her fingers hung, until she finally tore her hand away, frustrated beyond her ability to explain.

"Stop _touching_ me," she snapped, and refused to feel bad at the way his face fell. She'd felt—prickly all morning, all too aware of her vulnerability the night before, the way she'd taken such comfort in their touch.

"Well," Jaskier said after an awkward silence, "I think you've pretty much got it. So." He retreated to the far wall with Geralt, making more of a show of it than necessary. Geralt, who had been meditating, opened his eyes and looked at Jaskier with raised eyebrows as the other man leaned against him, tilting his head onto Geralt's shoulder. He didn't seem to mind, though, just shifted his weight so they were pressed together, side by side.

They looked comfortable together, and she felt a short-lived flare of envy, followed by a deeper, more hollow longing for something she couldn't identify. She looked away, but the cell was only so large, so she could still see in her peripheral vision Jaskier picking at the cold remains of Geralt's breakfast plate. 

"The food here is really below any decent standards," he said, nibbling on a piece of fried potato. "I should lodge some kind of complaint."

It wasn't true—Herewold had been unfailingly generous in all respects besides the "not killing her" one—but Yennefer had the feeling that for Jaskier, complaining was more of a pastime than something that bore any relation to reality.

Geralt gave an amused huff, but didn't respond further. Jaskier didn't seem to need more encouragement than that, though. "Speaking of potatoes," he said, looking up at Geralt with a smile, "do you remember that time with the boar? When I went hunting, because you were too injured—"

"I wasn't," Geralt interrupted, without rancor. "And I wouldn't call it 'hunting,' exactly."

"You absolutely were," Jaskier said, "and I know you were because you let me take your sword and wander off into the woods—"

"We would have been fine eating travel rations, you were the one who couldn't do without fresh meat."

"I came _very close_ to catching three separate rabbits," Jaskier said. "And it's hardly my fault branches snap when I step on them like any normal non-witchery human. And then just when I was about to give up, what do I find but a small, dinner-sized baby boar—"

"Which you completely failed to kill," Geralt said.

"Which I didn't have the heart to kill," Jaskier agreed, "and it clearly recognized that I had a good and worthy soul, because it followed me all the way back to camp."

"You're lucky you didn't run into its mother," Geralt said. He was smiling now, just a little. "You'd have been gored through."

"Yes, well, fortune does tend to favor me," Jaskier said. At some point in the telling his hand had tangled itself with Geralt's, though neither of them seemed to notice. "And might I point out, you didn't want to kill it either."

"It was _tiny,_ " Geralt said. "And lost."

"And cute," Jaskier said. "It was too cute to kill, admit it." Geralt snorted and said nothing, but Jaskier grinned as if he'd extracted a confession. "So we dined on roast potatoes, because the mighty witcher was too soft to kill a chubby little piglet that followed me home."

"Nothing wrong with potatoes," Geralt said.

"No," Jaskier said, "I suppose not. Though one does tire of roast potatoes and charred beast after enough time on the road. Which reminds me, do you remember that one banquet I dragged you to, the one with the absolutely exquisite pheasant?"

He launched into another story, this one about some high society function he'd coaxed Geralt into attending that had been invaded mid-soup-course by a monster, but a rather pathetic one, by Jaskier's telling. Apparently Geralt had killed it almost effortlessly with his steak knife, and been fêted and celebrated to an absurd degree by the nobility in attendance. Geralt rolled his eyes as Jaskier retold it, but showed no real sign of wanting him to stop.

Yennefer sat on the other side of the small room, rolling the pearl Jaskier had forgotten to take back between her fingers as Jaskier sang snatches of the song he'd composed on the spot in Geralt's honor, and wondered what his purpose was. He wasn't talking to her, or even looking at her. Yet she felt somehow as if there were an empty space beside him—between them—that beckoned her.

At the very least, listening to Jaskier's stories kept her from thinking too much about the cuffs around her wrists, and the stifling weight of nothingness that bore down on her whenever she unthinkingly reached for her magic. If she had to endure them one more day, she was fairly sure she'd go mad. Of course, in a day's time she'd either be free or dead, so that would solve the problem either way.

—

No one came to feed them at the usual time in the evening, presumably on the assumption that Yennefer would shortly be past needing it and Geralt and Jaskier would be set free. It had been silent for some time; Jaskier had run out of stories and either slept or made a good show of doing so, head in Geralt's lap while Geralt meditated.

When she noticed the absence of the food, and the just-before-sunset quality of the light, she said Jaskier's name and, when he opened his eyes, tossed the pearl to him. He didn't catch it, of course, and scrabbled about on the floor until he could grab it and slip it back in its pouch.

"They're not bringing dinner tonight," she said, and he nodded.

"I suppose it would be a waste."

For a long minute they looked at each other. Yennefer searched her mind for what she wanted to say—what she _wanted_ —and couldn't find it, or couldn't look at it when she found it, which was the same thing.

Finally Jaskier left Geralt's side and sat next to her and said, in a carefully gentle voice that made her skin crawl, "He still loves you, you know."

She felt her shoulders tense. "Who says that he loved me before?"

"Yennefer," Jaskier said, with a note of reproach in his voice, and she accepted it with a scowl, knowing it was true. Geralt was hardly demonstrative, but he had been clear enough in his actions, in the way he always looked at her like he was stunned at his luck. It was what had drawn her back to him again and again, that look in his eyes—and the way he touched her so tenderly, as if he didn't quite understand what tenderness was but wanted to very much, and so he succeeded.

To her deep horror, she felt a lump rise in her throat, and swallowed hard around it, keeping her face still. She'd never wept over a lover in her life; she wouldn't start now.

Jaskier, fortunately, seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts and didn't notice her lapse. "I know...I know I don't have any right to say the same," he said. "Because you were right, I don't know you, not really. But...I'd like to."

"You're not worried I'll take him away from you?" Almost all her adult memories of Jaskier were of his ill-concealed jealousy, his bitter glares and snipes because she'd had what he had wanted so desperately. It was hard to credit the idea that he was suddenly willing to share.

He shrugged. "I can't say the thought hasn't crossed my mind, but...Geralt has a lot of love to give, I think. Like, a surprising amount. I mean, you know that, don't you?"

She thought of Geralt's hands on her, studying softness like a student new to the concept but determined to get it right. She thought of the way he wrapped around her in sleep, resting his head on her chest, his arms around her back solid but never too tight. How he took comfort in her, and made it so easy to comfort him, though she didn't understand the concept any more than he did.

She thought of his big hand clasping hers the night before, a touchstone guiding her back from the pain that had swallowed her whole.

"And anyway," Jaskier went on, "I don't..." He stopped, pressed his lips together, and seemed to be turning words over in his head trying to find the right ones. "We don't want to do this without you," he said finally. "Not after everything."

"Do what?" She tried to hold herself steady, tried not to show how that _we_ had knocked her flat like a powerful wave, leaving her sputtering in the sand.

"Anything. Life." He shrugged, eyes glittering with sincerity. "We want you to be a part of ours. As...well, in whatever capacity you'd like."

She stared at him for a long time, breathing in and out, in and out, searching his face for any sign of a lie. "You'll excuse me," she said slowly, coldly, "if I want to hear that from Geralt himself."

Jaskier shrugged and went over to Geralt and crouched next to him, touching his shoulder lightly, and Geralt opened his eyes instantly. "Tell her," Jaskier said, and Geralt's eyes locked onto hers. They were the same, she realized, as when they had been children, when she'd been convinced of his love for her as a simple fact of life.

"Stay with us," he said, slowly and plainly. "Please."

Despite the sudden aching in her throat, she looked first at Jaskier, worried about him despite herself. But he didn't look hurt, or jealous. He was just looking at her...pretty much the same way Geralt was looking at her.

She breathed around the almost painful swelling in her chest for a minute before opening her mouth, not sure what she was going to say, half-afraid it would be _no_ and half-afraid that it wouldn't. Before she could say anything, though, Geralt's eyes went dark and he stiffened, and she knew someone was coming.

They assumed their positions—Yennefer ready to slam the door shut, Geralt curled on the floor as though desperately wounded, Jaskier on his feet and poised—and waited the interminable fifteen seconds for the door to open, knowing just how little chance they had.

Either luck or the gods were on their side, though, because when Thydonis strolled into the room he was alone, except for the three guards posted outside. There was no need to give a signal; Geralt was on his feet less than a second later and lunging at him. Yennefer threw herself against the door, knowing she couldn't hold it long against the men outside, powerless as she was, but desperation gave her strength and for the moment, at least, she managed.

Geralt tackled Thydonis easily; the idiot really hadn't expected a fight. Yennefer was relieved to see that Geralt pinned his hands first, one hand easily swallowing both wrists; mages could cast spells with just their voice, but it was harder, less powerful. Geralt's fist slammed into Thydonis' face, again and again, and there was no chance of him noticing Jaskier's nimble fingers at his waist.

Yennefer could feel her momentary strength weakening with each kick at the door. She thrust out her hands and Jaskier rushed to her, but before he could fit the key into the lock Geralt let out a horrible, agonized cry and rolled off of Thydonis onto his side, curled around his middle, where blood was beginning to bloom poppy-red across his shirt.

Jaskier eyes met hers, terrified, and she felt him slip the keys into her palm. No sooner had she closed her fist around them than Thydonis roared, a wordless bellow of rage, and Geralt slammed into the far wall and fell crumpled to the floor. Thydonis turned to face Yennefer—ignoring Jaskier entirely—and she felt a grim satisfaction at the sight of his bloody, broken face.

The door burst open behind her, knocking her to the floor, but Thydonis snarled and waved a hand at the guards, who fell back. "Enough," he growled, and spat a wad of phlegm and blood onto the floor—a tooth shining white in the middle of it, Yennefer was pleased to see. His eyes fell on her, and she carefully relaxed the hand with the keys, letting her fingers fall loose and curled to hide the tension in her thumb, the way Jaskier had taught her.

He snarled wordlessly, grabbed her arm, and dragged her out of the cell. He moved fast, doubtless trying to make her stumble, and she did a bit, focused so intently as she was on keeping her grip on the keys. She tried to keep track of the hallways they turned down, and it wasn't too difficult; a lord of Herewold's stature wouldn't, of course, have a large castle.

As they hurried down another long hall, she heard someone approaching from behind. She turned her head and saw Agnatha jogging towards them, her face pinched.

"I told you to wait for me," she snapped, catching up to Thydonis, ignoring Yennefer entirely. "Look at you—if you had just waited—I _told_ you the witcher was dangerous—" He elbowed her aside and she stumbled, but kept following. "At least let me heal you, you idiot."

"Fine," he growled. "Just be quick about it." He didn't stop moving, but Agnatha apparently didn't mind; she kept pace and quickly wove a basic healing spell between her hands, murmuring the familiar words. It was a simple enough spell that Yennefer recognized it, though healing was hardly her specialty. It wouldn't fix everything, but it would certainly leave Thydonis less crazed with pain, which was bad news for her odds of getting herself unlocked without him noticing.

He dragged her up a winding flight of stairs, and then another, and she and Agnatha had to jog to keep pace with him. Finally they burst through a heavy wooden door and into a small round room lit by what seemed like a thousand candles, huge windows encircling it. Yennefer could see the full moon in the sky outside, glaring balefully down at the ritual diagrams painted on the floor. Herewold stood there waiting, and at the sight of Thydonis's face he recoiled.

"What happened?" he demanded. "You said they were no threat."

"They aren't," Thydonis said, his voice no longer a growl of rage but smooth and satiny like before. "I dealt with it. It's fine."

Herewold didn't look convinced, but he didn't argue, stepping back against the wall from where, apparently, he intended to watch Thydonis kill her. Yennefer had to at least give him this; he wasn't afraid to face the consequences of his choices. It wasn't much in his favor, as far as she was concerned.

When Thydonis finally turned to look at her, his face was still spattered with blood and the deep red marks that would become bruises, but his nose was mostly straight again, and his eyes were almost calm. "That was a lot of unnecessary unpleasantness," he said, a note of scolding in his voice. As though he expected her to apologize.

Yennefer said nothing but only looked at him, keeping her face blank. She knew this sort of man, and the lack of a reaction would infuriate him more than any insult. 

Sure enough, he scowled at her and shoved her roughly to the center of the diagram. "Stand there," he said, and to Agnatha behind her, he said, "Watch her." He said it offhandedly, though, as if he didn't really expect Yennefer to be any more trouble. After all, without her magic, what could she do?

Thydonis busied himself moving from point to point on the diagram, double checking the inscriptions and muttering to himself. Moving casually, conscious of Agnatha's eyes on her back, Yennefer crossed her arms. When it brought no reaction, she took a deep, leveling breath, and started to work. She was careful not to move her upper arms at all, though stretching her fingers toward the first lock cramped her forearms painfully. 

If at any point Thydonis had looked directly at her, she would have been caught. But he didn't, because of course, she was no threat. Geralt had been the threat, and Thydonis had dealt with him—she grit her teeth and refused to think of that horrible wound reopening, how much blood Geralt might have lost by now. All her focus rested on the slide of the key in the lock, awkwardly turning it with her wrist contorted, pressing it against her body as she slipped out of it so it didn't immediately fall off and clatter to the ground. 

The sudden flow of magic hit her like a bolt of lightning, even at only half strength, and she had to bite her lip to keep from gasping. Whispering as quietly as she could, she cast a protection spell around herself—a weak one that wouldn't hold up to more than one good hit from a mage with any power at all, but she only needed another few seconds to get the other cuff off.

No sooner had the words left her mouth than Thydonis stood, apparently satisfied with his setup, and turned to look at her. His eyes widened as he perceived the aura that surrounded her.

"How—" His eyes locked onto the key in her hand, chain dangling from it, and his face went red with rage. "You thieving _bitch_ ," he snarled, and swept his hand in a wide arc, sending a brutal slice of force flying towards her. 

Stealth abandoned, she slid the key into the second cuff and turned it, the rest of her power slamming back into her at the same moment that she felt her protective spell shatter. Thydonis took a breath and raised his hands, and that was all the time she needed.

Some spells were complicated workings, requiring long incantations and precise movements of the hands. The spell she summoned now, however, was a single word and a pointing finger. It relied entirely on the innate power of the caster, rather than any ritual or special phrasing. She had never been able to use it, her power always at least partially drained by whatever other magic she'd been doing, but at this moment she was filled, every inch and every cell, with all the chaos she had ever contained, and the spell did not fail.

Thydonis fell to the ground dead. Herewold let out a shocked squeal, cowering against the wall. Yennefer turned around to face Agnatha, hands raised to prepare a defense spell, but the other mage was gone. For a second Yennefer stared at the open door stupidly, her mind still trembling from the sudden influx of power.

Then Agnatha's voice came to her mind, as clear as if she had been standing there: _I **told** you the witcher was dangerous—_

Vision darkening around the edges, she took off down the stairs, not sparing a thought for Herewold or vengeance. All she could think about was Geralt, blood spreading across his shirt like a spilled pot of watercolors—and Jaskier, who would stand in front of Geralt against any threat, no matter how futile his sacrifice might be.

She ran, and after a few moments she heard Herewold behind her, and then the sound of her own panting breaths drowned out everything else. Down the stairs, down the hallways, the path outlined in her mind with the clarity of crystal, until she arrived at the cell door and, with a swipe of her hand, sent the guards flying across the room as she ran inside.

Agnatha stood over the bodies, and for an infinitely long and unbearable moment Yennefer knew that they were dead, and couldn't move. Herewold stumbled, panting, into the room behind her.

"Damn it, Agnatha!" he shouted, and he sounded honestly upset. "I told you they weren't to be harmed!"

Agnatha whirled to face him. She was clutching an amulet of some kind, Yennefer saw dimly, which would explain how she'd had the power to take down Geralt, even wounded as he was.

"They were going to kill you!" she said, her voice shrill and strident. "You didn't see what they did to Thydonis, they _care_ for her—"

Jaskier's chest, Yennefer saw, was still rising and falling, though he grimaced with each movement. The sight broke her paralysis, and with one sharp motion she drew her hand across the air in front of her. Blood spurted from Agnatha's throat and she stared at Yennefer, her face frozen in an offended expression that Yennefer would have found darkly hilarious under other circumstances, before collapsing to the ground.

Behind her, Herewold was speaking, voice urgent and pleading, but she paid him no attention. She knelt between Geralt and Jaskier, feeling the edge of panic start to overtake her as she tried to figure out who was worse off.

"Help him," Geralt croaked, and his bloody hand landed on her skirt, squeezing emphatically. "I'm, it's not...don't—"

He _looked_ on the knife edge of death, but he was a witcher, and she had no choice but to trust him. She turned towards Jaskier, who seemed to flutter on the edge of consciousness, eyes opening and closing, focusing on her for a moment before rolling back again. There were no obvious wounds, but blood bubbled from his mouth and nose, and he shivered violently, worsening when she touched him.

"I—can I help?" Herewold stepped forward hesitantly, wringing his hands. "I never wanted this, Yennefer, you must know—"

"Get out." Her voice was low, almost dispassionate, as though all her terror and rage was reserved for her trembling hands over Jaskier's body. "Get out before I kill you too."

For a moment he just stood there—she felt him behind her, heard him start to speak and stop, but finally his footsteps retreated. She focused on Jaskier, closing her eyes and feeling with her other senses for the internal damage, mending what she could until he at least stopped coughing up fresh blood. 

(It reminded her abruptly of the first time she'd met him, limp and spitting blood and terrified, remarkable only for the way his witcher friend promised her anything—anything at all—in return for fixing him. How close she had come to never knowing either of them; how impossible that seemed now, when their pain squeezed at her heart and made it hard to breathe.)

"Geralt," she said. "Can you walk? Just a few paces?"

He set his jaw and pushed himself up to sitting, then—with a stifled groan of pain—to standing, and nodded. 

Yennefer sketched a portal and stood, then bent to lift Jaskier into her arms. He was heavier than he looked, and she had to draw on her magic for the strength to carry him. She stepped through the portal, and Geralt followed, and it snapped closed behind them with a crack.

The cottage stood in front of them, looking just as she'd left it. In front of the door, the cat was curled up, quirking one ear and looking up at her as if it had expected her arrival. She glanced behind her and was relieved to find Geralt still standing, although he looked very much as if he might fall at any moment.

"In here," she said, "it's safe," and traced the sigil to unlock the door, and another to allow other people inside. She'd never used that one before, she realized, and felt a startling sense of vertigo at the idea that _someone else_ was going to see inside her private retreat.

Even more unsettling was the fact that she didn't care. She carried Jaskier inside and into the kitchen, and Geralt followed, sitting down heavily in a chair by the table. She lay Jaskier on the worktop in the center of the room, listened for his breathing, and when she found it satisfactory sat down next to Geralt. "Let me see," she said, reaching for his wound.

He shied away, frowning. "Jaskier..."

"I've stabilized him," she said. "He'll live long enough for me to make sure you don't die, so enough self-sacrificing nonsense for now, got it?"

Geralt let out a pained noise that might have been ever so slightly amused. "Got it," he said, and this time when she pushed his shirt up he didn't resist. The wound had reopened messily; it looked, if possible, worse than it had when it was fresh, and though it wasn't spurting blood it still leaked steadily. 

She took his hands and placed them, one atop the other, on top of the wound. "Put pressure on that," she said. "I'm going to mix something to stop the bleeding."

It was easy to lose herself, then, in the work. She crushed herbs together, added oils, followed the few formulas she knew by heart, and listened for any changes in Jaskier and Geralt's breathing as she mixed. No one else had ever drawn breath in this place besides her—and, she supposed, the cat. It should have felt like a violation, but it didn't. It felt right, and safe, and good.

She didn't think about that. She applied a poultice to Geralt's wound, and woke Jaskier up just long enough for him to swallow the medicine she'd mixed, and then she sat down at the table across from Geralt and closed her eyes and waited to feel normal again.

It might have been a minute, or an hour, when Geralt said, his voice raspy and halting, "Yenn...what we said, before..."

"Don't," she said automatically. "Not—don't."

"We do want you with us," he said. It made her shudder, as though her body didn't know what else to do with the white light that blossomed in her chest at his words.

She shook her head. "Don't," she said again, and this time he listened, or else he was too tired and wounded to keep talking. Her body ached—the metaphysical bruising of accessing too much chaos, too fast, for too long—and she was, quite suddenly, exhausted. Without really meaning to, she lowered her head onto her arms and dozed.

She woke some time later to find Geralt standing next to Jaskier, leaning heavily on the counter's edge with one hand, the other gently wiping a damp cloth over Jaskier's face, cleaning off the spatters of blood. She felt vaguely that she should do that instead and let Geralt rest some more, but it seemed wrong to come between them just then, and she simply watched instead—without, she realized, even a hint of jealousy.

Jaskier would take at least a week to heal, so she would have time to think. And there was, gods knew, enough to think about.

—

She got out some food mostly out of habit, but it turned out she was ravenous. Geralt was too, of course; he hadn't been eating most of what he'd been given while they were imprisoned. They ate bread and salami and cheese and fruit, and she worried briefly about Geralt's gut wound, but the poultice (and the little spell she'd said over it) seemed to be helping enormously.

After they ate, she put down some meat and water for the cat, and then led Geralt, Jaskier in his arms, to the bedroom. The cat, she realized when they got there, had followed them, careless of its supper.

Geralt eyed it warily. "I don't tend to get along with cats," he said, and stiffened as it rubbed against his legs, purring loudly.

"This one is peculiar," Yennefer said, and bent down to give it a scratch. It pushed its head up into her hand, then leapt onto the bed and curled up at the foot of it.

"Mmm, hello," Jaskier mumbled as Geralt laid him down gently on the bed, careful to avoid bumping the cat. "Where..."

"Yennefer's house," Geralt said, his eyes warming as he met Jaskier's half-lidded gaze. "We're safe here."

"Safe is good," Jaskier said, and yawned, which turned into a hacking cough. Yennefer touched the glass by the bed and it filled with water, and she gave it to him as Geralt helped him sit up enough to drink. He swallowed eagerly, then winced. "I feel like...someone dissolved all my insides," he said, slurring a little, and yawned again. "Please don't tell me if that's actually what happened."

Yennefer sat next to him. "I won't tell you, then." The bed was exactly as soft as she liked it, of course, and despite her napping earlier she wanted so badly to sleep that it felt like a physical ache. She watched Geralt pull his boots off and lie down next to Jaskier, apparently intending to do exactly that, and thought about the invitation they'd offered. _In whatever capacity you'd like._

They were both watching her, she realized as she stood there, shifting her weight, trying to decide. Well—the hell with it, she thought. It was her bed. If she got into it, it didn't mean anything.

She slipped under the covers on Jaskier's other side, her head sinking perfectly into the pillow, and she heard Geralt exhale slowly. She felt a stirring by her feet, and then the light padding of cat paws crawling up over her legs to settle by her hips, warming itself between her body and Jaskier's.

"Mmm..." Jaskier smiled, an utterly guileless and sweet thing that she doubted he'd ever show if he was fully awake and well. "Feels like I should be singing something. Just like before."

They'd spent nights like this, when she and Geralt were children—clustered around Jaskier, to be told a story, or sung a song, or just comforted and warmed. Yennefer closed her eyes and, just because she was very tired and didn't want to fight it, let herself remember. When Jaskier actually started to sing, the doubling of past and present felt only natural.

" _Of all the money that e'er I had,_ " he sang, his voice thin but never out of tune, " _I spent it in good company..._ " He broke off to cough and she shifted closer to him, listened as Geralt shushed him.

Then, quite unexpectedly, Geralt's voice rang out in the little room. " _And all the harm that e'er I did,_ " he sang, his voice low and smooth, " _alas 'twas done to none but me._ "

He didn't have a bard's voice—there was no style in it, no flair—but it was richly toned, and she wondered how she hadn't known he could do that. There was so much about Geralt she still didn't know, even after six months growing up by his side.

" _And all I've done, for want of wit, to memory now I can't recall..._ "

She buried her face in Jaskier's shoulder, breathing in the scent of him, unchanged and familiar from the last time she'd slept next to him like this. It would be all right, she thought—half asleep already, not certain what she meant, but convinced of it utterly.

" _So fill to me the parting glass,_ " Geralt sang softly, and she drifted into sleep, one arm slung across Jaskier's chest, hand resting on Geralt's arm, exactly where she wanted to be.

**Author's Note:**

> The language about trans people is:  
> 1.) Spells for changing AMAB to AFAB bodies and vice versa are referred to as "changing a man into a woman".  
> 2.) The following quote: "Had it been a man who felt that she should be a woman? She had known such a woman at Aedirn, though Alisette hadn't had access to magic like this (as Yennefer had discovered during a very pleasant tumble)."  
> If you feel that these are disrespectful in context, please let me know; I promise to listen.
> 
> The song Geralt sings is "The Parting Glass," and [this is my favorite rendition of it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzLuS-OOrO0) Also, it didn't make it into the fic or the title, but while I was writing this an anon suggested [Sara Bareilles' "Orpheus"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWMBG1Z0FuE) as a theme song and it works SO well and makes me cry, and I came very close to calling this story "someone else's solid ground."
> 
> Thank you to everyone who left feedback on the kidfic, and everyone who encouraged me in the RIDICULOUSLY long journey to finishing this sequel. And yes, there will be a threequel (in Geralt POV, to round things out), because I am DETERMINED to get this series to actual OT3 status, and also Geralt still has to tell Yennefer about the wish...
> 
> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://some-stars.tumblr.com/) for Witcher shitposts, WIP updates, occasional prompt fills, and just because I very much need people to talk to about this stupid, stupid show. :D? :D? Also if you would like to reblog this story, you can [do so here!](https://some-stars.tumblr.com/post/622461831373635584/how-to-stack-your-stones-somestars-the)


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